An Essential Parable for a Young Woman
by will-o-whisper
Summary: A mother, a daughter, and the stories they share.


_Disclaimer: Dragon Age is the property of Bioware and EA._

_Post game story. The unnamed mother is Morrigan; Agrona is the god-child._

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Agrona was six when she found her love for stories in the discovery of a tattered leather-bound book in the ruins of an old merchant caravan. She had wandered from the camp she and her mother kept, high in the snowcapped Frostback Mountains, to explore when she stumbled upon the wagons' burnt corpses surrounded by bleached white skeletons. Some of the bones had been gnawed upon, and one of these Agrona picked up and waved about, pretending it was the staff her mother carried. Brittle femurs and ribs cracked beneath her bare feet as she leaped about and giggled; she imagined she was already the powerful witch her mother claimed she would be come, and that she had destroyed the caravan herself. It was as she played that the book caught her eye.

Her mother found Agrona there, sitting with book open in her lap, surrounded by the memory of slaughter. She smacked her daughter once about the head, for hiding, and tried to take Agrona's new treasure. With a shriek Agrona clutched her book to her chest and tried to squirm away.

"It's mine!" Agrona wailed. Visions of all the treats she had found, and the treats her mother had stolen away, quivered in her mind. She curled herself into a ball, book pressed between her chest and thighs, but her mother jerked her back and snatched the book. After only a glance at the title she declared that no daughter of _hers_ would foul her mind with such garbage and tossed the item away. It landed in the brush. Agrona stumbled to her feet, turned on her mother, and raised a fist.

The mother watched passively, pale eyes stern. "Think hard before you touch me, girl." A tense moment passed before Agrona whined and beat her fists against her thighs. Her mother smacked her again.

"I hate you!" Agrona screeched again and twisted out of reach.

"Do you now?"

Indeed Agrona did, and she said as much and threw herself to the ground. She sat with her knees pulled to her chest, arms wrapped around them, and toes curling in the dirt. She scowled over her knees, eyes two hard little flints of amber fixed on a marble face. A cool breeze whispered through the trees and played with wispy strands of her black hair. Her mother's hair, the same shade of pitch, rustled against her shoulders as she watched her child huff and sneer.

Finally the mother turned and walked away, a swish in her hips. The only sounds were the crick-crack of twigs beneath her feet, the whistling of hidden birds, and the sigh of the wind. At the edge of the wood, where the trees were thick together and filled with shadows and green, she paused and looked over her shoulder. "Stay if you wish Agrona, but if you wish to eat tonight you will come help me prepare our dinner." With that, she vanished into the wood, as though she'd become part of the forest itself.

Agrona remained where she was. Tears gathered at the corners of her eyes, and she blinked quickly to flick them away. She thought to beat her mother at this game—so certain Agrona was her mother would return. But as the minutes passed, and darkness fell as a chill and heavy haze, a familiar terror clenched in her chest, that same fear she'd held since she could remember that she would be forgotten. Suddenly, with a small sob, Agrona scrabbled to her feet and ran after her mother, in the same direction as the warm campfire and home she knew waited for her.

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A pot of stew bubbled over a crackling fire. Agrona sat by her mother's feet, watching orange tongues lick at the night; the way the firewood turned black and shriveled under something so light and untouchable as flame fascinated her. Every now and then her mother would look up from the tome she read, a heavy grimoire bound in black, and tell her to stir the pot. When she leaned forward to do so Agrona inhaled deeply, and the smooth sweet scent of the stew rushed her senses, momentarily overwhelming the forest smells of wet dirt and rot.

Dinner still had some time before it would be done. Agrona sat back and, hesitantly, rested her head against her mother's knee. Her mother placed a hand on her head, and Agrona flinched, afraid that she would be pushed away. Instead her mother's hand moved to the back of Agrona's head and fussed with tangled mess of hair there.

"Go get your comb." The mother withdrew hand.

Agrona nodded and scuttled over to her makeshift tent. She kept the comb, with the rest of her few belongings, in a small leather pouch next to the straw mat where she slept. The comb was extravagant, made of ivory and ornamented with a rainbow of precious gems. It clashed horridly with the subtle beauty of the forest, and Agrona found it ugly, but that comb was a gift from her mother; on good morning Agrona would sit, sometimes for an hour or more, while her mother gently combed her hair and pulled it back in elaborate buns or braids that would only fly free and wild under the relentless assault of Agrona's play by the end of the day. During those few moments, filled with nothing but the sounds of the wood awakening and the tickle of ivory teeth against Agrona's scalp, the mother almost smiled. Agrona loved that not-quite smile.

So Agrona snatched her comb and scurried back to her place by the fire. She plopped back down before her mother, who set her grimoire aside, and reached back to give her the comb. While her mother tried to free her hair from the ribbons that had bound it during the day, Agrona drew pictures with her finger in the dirt. After her hair came loose in a matted mess that her mother began to work through Agrona asked why she could not keep the book she'd adored so dearly for a few precious moments.

Her mother ignored Agrona's whimpers as she fought with a particularly nasty snarl. "Because you may not. Now speak no more of it."

"But I just wanted to read the stories!" Agrona cried. She pulled away from her mother and turned to look at her. "The Dalish have stories! They told me! Why can't I have stories too?"

Agrona remembered her first and only encounter with one of the traveling clans of Dalish elves with joy. While her mother bartered for reagents and other goods, one of the young elven boys caught Agrona by the wrist and, giggling, pulled her to a circle of children surrounding an elderly man. He watched in silence as the boy, tugging at Agrona and urging her to join him, sat at the back of the group. If the man did not approve of Agrona's presence, neither did he reject it as he turned to his charges and began to tell, in a voice raspy from use, tales about the Dalish—their histories and myths and songs, what few remained. Agrona listened wide-eyed and full of envy for heroes and gods she could not call her own.

Agrona's mother grabbed her shoulder and turned her back around. "You've no use for stories from the world of men."

"But why can't I have _any_?"

"If you wish it so, then _I_ will tell you a story." The combing paused. "Now sit. Still."

Surprised and pleased Agrona shifted to sit more comfortably cross-legged. She folded her arms in her lap and settled in, warm in the glow of the fire with her mother at her back though the night was dark and cold.

Agrona's mother resumed her task, easing loose tangles slowly as she thought. Then she began to speak:

"I suppose I shall tell you what I remember of a tale I heard once, many years ago.

"Many ages ago, well before our own, the world of magic existed freely beside the world of men. In this age witches practiced their arts and honored the old ways in the seclusion of the Wilds. Magic was preserved and respected—it was not suffocated by meaningless laws and petty politics as it is today.

"Into this world of ancient secrets a child was born to a dead woman under a new moon: a girl, named Morag. Her mother had been the daughter of the oldest and most powerful crone, and the night Morag was born the greatest witches gathered to determine the fate of this pitiful babe. They knew this mewling infant would one day surpass even her grandmother, and bring either new life or utter destruction to their world.

"While the witches squabbled amongst themselves, the old crone gathered Morag in her arms. She looked at this miserable helpless creature, so small and frail even in the trembling hold of an old woman. The babe began to cry, and the old crone made her decision. She turned to those lesser souls than she and declared 'This girl is of my blood. I shall take her, and raise her to honor our ways and respect our traditions. She will grow strong and wise and secure our world against the threat of the world of man.' The others heard this, and agreed that it was good.

"So the old crone took the child and raised her as she thought best. Years passed, and Morag indeed grew strong and stronger still, 'til she grew stronger even than the crone. And with her strength she grew ever more foolish. Arrogant as any man, Morag scoffed that mere _tradition_ had nothing for her. Her grandmother's arts were meaningless before the power she wielded. Morag turned from her Wilds home, headless of the crone's warnings. She turned her eyes, instead, to the cities of men."

Here the mother fell silent. She paused in her assault on her daughter's hair, now mostly coaxed into submission. No more than a minute passed before Agrona began to squirm. Her mother placed a hand on her shoulder to still her.

"What _next_?" Agrona whined.

"Patience, girl. Now stir the stew for me."

Agrona huffed, but did as she was told. When she settled back into her spot, Agrona glanced back at her mother, who had shifted her attention to the fire. The mother stared into the flames, expression distant and unfamiliar to Agrona. Agrona watched her until the mother turned back to her.

"Look straight and keep still so I can finish this." This Agrona did, and the mother began braiding Agrona's hair.

"What next…Morag was enamored with the ways of men, you see. Their obsession with wealth and order fascinated her. Among men, Morag thought, she would be respected and feared as she deserved to be. What man would care how much or how little she cared for dusty rituals and dead gods? Only power had meaning in the world of man, and of power Morag believed she had plenty.

"So one night, when she was a woman of seventeen, Morag fled the hut she shared with her grandmother. She fled to the largest and grandest of all men's cities. There, surrounded by filth encased in stone walls, she learned her magic was meaningless. Feared as it was, anyone believed to belong to the world Morag had left was captured and killed. A lone witch could hope for no respect here.

"Arrogant fool that she was, Morag refused to accept the crone had spoken truth in her warnings. She remained in the city, kept her magic hidden. For ten years she lived in squalor. She married, though it brought her no joy. Still, she never thought to return to the Wilds. Still she thought she could prove the old crone wrong.

"Then, in the winter of her twenty-seventh year Morag betrayed herself. 'Twas a foolish mistake. One day she tried to light a fire, to warm her house, and found the wood too damp from the snow; the flame would not catch. Remembering the lessons she had learned so long ago, she used her magic to start a blaze. Her husband entered in time to see her do this. Horrified, he fled before Morag could see that he had seen.

"He returned with many other men and cried that Morag had bewitched him, and they could not suffer a witch to live. Though she tried to fight, Morag found her magic weak and pitiful for lack of proper education and use. What a wonder she had been able to start even a little fire at all! The men overwhelmed her, bound her up, and locked her away in a cold stone cell to be executed in the morning.

"As she waited in her cell, furious at man and sorry for herself, Morag realized a small ancient sparrow was perched on the sill of room's sole window. She knew, though she had not seen her for many years, that the sparrow was the crone, for the crone was one of few witches who could change her form and Morag had seen her do so many times before her flight. She pulled herself to the window and cried 'Grandmother! How I've missed you! Please, you must help me!'

"The sparrow shook its head and said 'I have only come to mourn, stupid girl. Oh, what you could have been had you not allowed yourself to be seduced by the ways of man! Now you will die, and our world will die with you. I do not weep for you, Morag, but I weep for who you could have been and for what will now be lost.' With that, the sparrow flew away, heedless of Morag's screams.

"That morning, seven men fetched Morag to be burned alive before her husband and all the denizens of the city. They say she made no sound, even as the flames lapped at her feet.

"In time the crone's prediction came to pass. Driven by mindless terror, men grew ever more aggressive in their efforts to destroy all magic, and though the witches fought, they knew they could not win; no witch but Morag could ever have been powerful enough to drive back the hoard.

"Today many of the ancient traditions are lost…though we keep what we can of the old ways alive. Or we will if we stop wasting time. Enough." The mother finished plating Agrona's hair, leaving it hang down her back in a long black rat's tail. "Take that pot off the fire."

They ate their dinner in silence, though Agrona had many questions. Her mother had used up her words and kindness for the night, perhaps for the next week, and any further pressing on Agrona's part would not be tolerated; she was young, but Agrona understood this.

When she went to bed that night Agrona dreamt of unstoppable roaring blazes and earth shattering timeworn spells.

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Twenty years later Agrona walked the streets of Denerim. Though her mother had sworn never to return to Fereldan, Agrona had to see world her father had known, and she made the journey alone on the promise she would return quickly. It was a promise she planned to keep. She wandered the market places, straining to hear her own mind over the clamor of mindless shoppers. Her mother's tales had told the truth about the awful noise—and filth, Agrona thought, as she stepped over a rank oozing pile of refuse—of cities; it made Agrona long for the natural music of the wood.

Agrona had heard many tales by this time—tales of what she was, of what she would be, of what she should fear, and of what she should not. Though her mother taught her to use old magic, the stories of the Old Gods taught her to respect it.

There were other stories too, true ones, if only partly. What little Agrona knew of her father—an elf and a mage, born to the world of men and yet apart from it, who had better than her mother's love; he had her respect—she learned from these. What less Agrona knew of her mother she gleaned from these as well, though her mother rarely cast herself within her tales, and never overtly so. Perhaps her mother had not intended such, but Agrona found her history, present, and future as bound in those stories as in her blood. She cherished them. Twenty years ago, the child she was could not appreciate what a favor had been done for her in the loss of that worthless book.

Agrona did find that book again, a copy of it setting out on a vendor's table, while slinking through Denerim's market place. She recognized the title, tooled on the leather cover: _Ten Essential Fables for Proper Young Ladies_. When she saw this she laughed and laughed to the cow eyed stares of baffled passersby. Ignoring them, and still chuckling to herself, Agrona turned from the vendor and vanished into the crowd.

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_Written for Challenge #1 at dao_challenge on livejournal. Constructive criticism is always appreciated._


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